Cooking the Books at the Federal Register: What Has the Executive Branch Been Feeding You?

Hmmm. What’s up here? Does 2+2 = 32? Why are the US Federal Register published statistics off by a factor of 8? Is this “truth”? Is this “competence”? Is this “leadership”? Is this “‘information’ for ‘formulating an opinion’?” What kind of opinion is meant to be formulated with this kind of “information”?

The President turns to his staff mathematician and asks: “Quick, what’s 2 = 2 ?” The mathematician answers, “The answer is straightforward: 2 + 2 is exactly 4.” The President turns to his staff statistician, and asks the same question. The statistician replies: ” The probability that 2 + 2 lies within the region 3.5 and 4.5 is 98% “. The President turns to his appointed first report at the Federal Register, and asks the same question. The administrator responds “What would you like it to be, Mr. President?”

Federal Register Statistics (the ones published all the time, shown as the line in the graph):

Let’s look at what the Federal Register has reported, as acquired from Wikipedia’s “The Federal Register Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate” (source referenced “A” below). This is a list which supposedly reports the quantity of Expatriating individuals from USA–the number is supposed to include 1) renunciants, 2) relinquishers, and 3) those long-term residents who have terminated their visa’s (“this listing, long-term residents, as defined in section 877(e)(2), are treated as if they were citizens of the United States who lost citizenship.” (“A” & “B“))

FBI statistics of renunciants only (red bar on the graph)

A renunciant is one who has gone to the embassy and directly stated to the embassy that has traveled to the embassy and stated a consulate-standard oath of renunciation of US citizenship. For this privilege, (s)he must also now pay $2350 to the consulate. A relinquisher is one who has performed a particular act with the specific intention of losing his citizenship. Such an act could be such as working within a foreign government, or taking upon a foreign citizenship with the specific intent of simultaneously relinquishing US citizenship.

A database of those who have renounced their US citizenship exists at the FBI. This is a result of the Brady Bill which disallows renunciants from purchasing firearms. To meet the intent of that act, the list only holds the category of renunciants. Let’s make the assumption that the FBI is both correct and honest, and use it’s renunciation data with other newly data. (See references “D“, especially the first)

Loss of Long-term visa status, I-407 (shown by green bars on the graph)

The final category of expatriation is those who have held green cards. In order to be completely final of US personhood, a green card holder must file the I-407 IRS form which states that he is terminating his visa status.Only recently has a list of those terminating their greencard status with form I-407 been released. (see reference “C“)

Therefore, with correct statistics, it should be able to add the FBI list of renunciants (the red bar) to the FOIA list of I-407 greencard turner-in-ers (the green bar, acquired from the FOIA referenced “B” below.) to make a sum. This is done by stacking the two bar graphs.

Adding relinquishers to the stacked bars: not available

The quantity of relinquishers is needed to complete the analysis. However, this is not available.

The stacking of red and green should be less than the total amount of all three categories which should be in the Federal Register line graph. However, the Federal Register line is not below the graph, it is drastically under the graph.

Comparison of the stacked items to the line

The difference below the line graph down to the stacked bar graphs should have been the quantity of US citizens relinquishing their US citizenship.

Let’s look at the data in the graph to evaluate the honesty and accuracy of the administration’s Federal Register data.

Whoa! What do we see? Not only is there no relinquishers’s mentioned–the data in the Federal Register is 8 times lower than the portion of the stacked data. This is an exponential inaccuracy.

.What could be the reason for these Executive “inaccuracies”? A boo-boo? (the proper word for that is incompetence). Round-off errors? (perhaps the figures are meant to be rounded off to the nearest odd 100,000?).

Or is it some other agenda? Is Mythster Robert Stack of the Treasury helping to back up his “and Facts” Sheet? (see refs)

It appears that the quantity of individuals choosing to expatriate has little basis in accuracy. The Federal Register’s expatriation list is known as the “Name and Shame” list, as there is no functional reason for listing the names of persons having renounced their citizenship other than to shame such person. This falls in line with the President’s summer speech where he backhandedly attacked the refugees leaving his FATCA & FBAR dragnet. He was openly flailing the foreign subsidiaries who are trying to achieve corporate refugee status outside the reach of the US’ extra-territorial taxation system., “…But stopping companies from renouncing their citizenship just to get out of paying their fair share of taxes …”. With this one sentence, the president managed to smear an entire group of refugees leaving USA.

(Lest we not forget–a refugee leaving the US is muzzled from speaking about why–that the FATCA and FBAR dragnets are after him. If he shall speak, the refugee is automatically labeled a “covered expatriate” and subjected to an automatic 30% exit tax. And, be reminded that the exit tax from the Wehrmacht was only 25%!).

Altnernative anecdotal data

With no access to factual data, one must turn to anecdotal information in order to attempt to pursue a truth.

For example, in Belgium, a moderately sized country, the embassy has mentioned that they are processing about 5 renunciations per week, and that this is happening at embassies EVERYWHERE. With 190 countries in the world, this would imply 1000 renunciations per week!

In Canada and Switzerland, where awareness of FATCA is very high, most embassies and consulates have waiting periods ranging from 2 to 18 months.

The administration itself has reacted–by locking the doors to people of lesser means. First, the administration raised the renunciation fee from zero to $450. And last month, the renunciation fee was raised to $2350. Compare this to the costs of acquiring a passport–$135. Imagine that–he’s made it so that a renunciation from USA is 17 times more valuable than a passport to USA!

The data shows that the statistics of the administration just do not add up. What is the motive? What is the agenda? With this data available and analyzed, the burden of proof now lies upon the administration to fact up with its “statistics”.

References

White House Inversion Misinformation Campaign in High Gear, Tuesday, September 30, 2014,Written by J.D. Foster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarterly_Publication_of_Individuals_Who_Have_Chosen_to_Expatriateexplains that “…..Inclusion of non-citizen former permanent residents: The Quarterly Publication is required to include the names not just of former U.S. citizens but of certain former permanent residents as well. Under 26 U.S.C. § 6039G(d)(3), “the Federal agency primarily responsible for administering the immigration laws shall provide to the Secretary the name of each lawful permanent resident of the United States (within the meaning of section 7701 (b)(6)) whose status as such has been revoked or has been administratively or judicially determined to have been abandoned.” The Quarterly Publication includes a statement that “for purposes of this listing, long-term residents, as defined in section 877(e)(2), are treated as if they were citizens of the United States who lost citizenship”…..

Data for relinquishments is not available, hence it is not shown as a stacked bar. It was assumed that 500 relinquishments occurred per year in the first half of the period of analysis. 1000 per year were assumed for the second half of the period of the analysis. The assumed numbers are an insignificant portion of the total, and therefore would not negate any conclusions.

*2014 figures were annualized. I-4017 figures in 2013 were assumed double that as reported for 2013 in the report. I-407 figures for 2014 are extrapolated from 2013 by assuming that they are equal to those of 2013). NICS FBI statistics are acquired fro sep 2013 and annualized. Federal Register statistics are from Q1 and Q2 of 2014 and annualized

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Here is an analysis strictly of the Federal Register Statistics (which are supposed to include renunciations, relinquishments, and I-407 cessation of greencard), versus the FBI renunciations only. It helps to pinpoint why the Federal Register is so far off, and helps to show that the Federal Register does not even match the FBI statistics.

This post has been updated 24 Oct 2014, primarily with FBI data updates ranging to Sep 2014. Also the lower graph was added. Also, the assumed relinquishments were added as is the new line of totals in the graph at the top.

2 thoughts on “Cooking the Books at the Federal Register: What Has the Executive Branch Been Feeding You?”

(e) Comparable treatment of lawful permanent residents who cease to be taxed as residents
(1) In general
Any long-term resident of the United States who ceases to be a lawful permanent resident of the United States (within the meaning of section 7701 (b)(6)) shall be treated for purposes of this section and sections 2107, 2501, and 6039G in the same manner as if such resident were a citizen of the United States who lost United States citizenship on the date of such cessation or commencement

in 2000, the Government Accountability Office complained that: ”
INS provides annually to IRS a computer disc identifying individuals who gave up their residency permits (green cards). However, IRS does not use the data to track expatriates because the data do not distinguish former long-term residents from other former green card holders and generally do not include tax identification numbers.”